


Run Simulation

by IncendiaGlacies



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gideon Introspection, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 08:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19988854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncendiaGlacies/pseuds/IncendiaGlacies
Summary: Gideon runs simulation after simulation trying to figure out how to save Rip and deal with her grief over losing him.





	Run Simulation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amber_Flicker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_Flicker/gifts).



> Written for the Rarepair swap. For the prompt: Gideon post Rip's death, her thoughts regarding his death. Angst.
> 
> I hope this delivers. Thanks to ams75 for editing

_Run Simulation 1873_

“I’ll miss you, Gideon. Truly.”

Gideon wondered if it was possible to be heart-broken when she had no heart at all. There had to be a word for what she was experiencing. She was incapable of pure rage but this was pure sadness, grief, loss. She wasn’t sure what the word would be to describe an AI, but she knew if she were a human, she would be heartbroken.

“No more than I’ll miss you, Rip.”

He gave her a small nod and she watched him through her cameras as he left the ship for one final time. Captain Lance ordered the Legends back into the ship. The time drive from the jumpship needed refitting so they could time jump, but her Captain – her Rip – needed saving.

“Mr. West, I will handle repairs with Ms. Tomaz but it is imperative you save Rip.”

“But I-”

“You have to, Mr. West. I estimate we only have forty-three seconds until the time drive is fully unstable and will expand and eviscerate everything in its path. Including Rip. You’re the only one fast enough to save him.”

She watched through her cameras as a streak of lightning zoomed across the field where Rip was. Gideon readied the engines for takeoff. Just a few more seconds…the lightning zipped around Rip, one second he was there, the next second he was gone. The time drive dropped to the ground and exploded, left unattended. At the same time, the lightning streak entered the cargo bay, leaving a very discombobulated Rip and a grinning Wally. Gideon shot the Waverider into the sky without any prompting from Captain Lance.

“What – how?”

“Take your seats. We will be time jumping in three seconds,” Gideon told them.

“You saved me,” Rip whispered.

“Always.”

_End Simulation 1873_

* * *

Gideon knew from the start that she was an unusual AI. Perhaps it was because she was the original created by Barry Allen and the Time Masters could only make mere shadows of her for her brothers and sisters. She knew they never felt as much as she did, her emotional matrix was far more complex than theirs.

It had its upsides and downsides. Her high emotional IQ gave her an edge over on calculating the risks and losses of human lives. Perhaps the Time Masters weren’t always happy with how high she valued human life so she readjusted. What did one human life matter in the grand scheme of things? The Time Masters were right. It didn’t matter as long as time was safe.

And then she met Rip. Captain Hunter. The first Captain to really notice her emotional prowess and not shun her like her brothers and sisters, not punish her like previous Lieutenants and Captains. No, he valued her opinion, her thoughts on the matter at hand. He cared for her, truly. It strengthened their bond. While every Captain was mentally bonded with their AI in case of emergency situations, Gideon had never felt it of this gravity. An emotional bond as well.

She wondered if that was why it hurt so much to lose Miranda and Jonas. They were, by extension, her family as well. It was the first time she felt pain. At first, she thought her systems simply needed rebooting, that it was a virus that made her feel so out of sorts. But after thorough scans, she found nothing. A simple comparison of her actions – her recklessness in leaving the Time Masters and running away with her Captain, allowing criminals on board her ship, allowing her ship to be hurt over and over – to the human actions of her Captain, with his drinking, curtness, easy temper, showed one thing, she was grieving.

Was it possible for an AI to grieve? Gideon didn’t know if it was her connection to Rip which caused her to feel this way or if perhaps she had simply grown, learned as all AIs did and now felt more than she did before.

So, she grieved, she rebelled, and she thought she could never feel as bad as she did then. And then she lost her Captain. Again, and again, and again.

* * *

_Run Simulation 745_

“I know what you are trying to do and it is extremely reckless and dangerous. The chances of your survival are less than-”

“Well then, it seems I have finally learned to be a Legend.” Rip finished dismantling the time drive.

“Please don’t do this,” Gideon begged. It wouldn’t work. Words never worked on him. She had run enough simulations to know that.

“I have to, Gideon.”

“You have no escape plan.”

“I always survive.”

“You won’t. Your chances of survival are-”

“Then at least it will be for good reason,” he said quietly. “I’ll miss you, Gideon. Truly.”

“No more than I’ll miss you, Rip.”

She watched as he left the ship one last time. She told Captain Lance what Rip had done, Wally and Zari went to fix the jumpship time drive, Rip said his last words and his goodbyes. The time drive grew more and more unstable, its energy field growing and engulfing Rip and the time demon. Gideon tried to hold off on taking off, just a few more seconds, but Captain Lance pushed the thruster and started the engines.

They were gone. And so was he. Except…

A portal opened on the bridge and Rip fell through, burns on his arms and his Time Courier almost melted against his wrist. But he was alive.

“Rip!” the crew exploded into gasps and smiles. Gideon only had eyes for Rip.

“You survived,” she said softly.

He cracked an eye open, breathing still unsteady. “Had one last trick up my sleeve. Told you I always survive.”

_End Simulation 745_

* * *

Gideon had run hundreds of simulations and had come up with at least two hundred thirty-six viable options for Rip’s survival. Retrospectively, she could have saved him. If she hadn’t been so emotional at the time and focused on logic and facts, she could have saved him. She had ran so many, sometimes she lost sight of reality. The way that humans woke up from a dream, not realizing it was a dream. Sometimes, she came out of her situation not realizing Rip was still gone.

The thought haunted her. For the first six months she waited. She waited for him to come back because surely, he would. He couldn’t have been dead. He couldn’t be. It was all some elaborate joke he was playing on her to get back at her for locking him in his room his first day on board and she didn’t like it anymore. It was cruel and unfair and lonely. Very lonely.

Yes, the Legends were still there. But they never really talked to her, not unless they needed some information on the timeline or needed to know the innerworkings of the ship. Mr. Jackson had always talked to her during repairs the first time Rip left her. But he was also gone now. Ms. Tomaz preferred to listen to music rather than converse with Gideon. The AIs were long gone in the blast at the Vanishing Point, their never-ending network of minds and conversations gone.

It was quiet. It was lonely.

Gideon grew quiet, complacent, dejected. As time passed her flicker of hope started to die down. If Rip had survived, wouldn’t he be back by now? So where was he? What was taking so long?

She couldn’t handle the thought of him not surviving otherwise. She loved him.

Yes, that was the other conclusion she had come to far too late. Gideon loved Rip Hunter.

An Artificial Intelligence in love with a human. Oh, how they would all laugh if they could see her now!

But it was true. She loved him. Truly and desperately. It happened so gradually, Gideon didn’t even know when it happened. How it happened. She hadn’t realized it was love until he was gone the first time. Missing for months and no hint of him in the timeline. The worry ruined her very circuitry and Jax had worked for weeks on rewiring her commands.

She remembered Rip talking about love, his love for Miranda and Jonas. How much he was willing to sacrifice for them. He would have given her up for his family. Gideon had been aghast when he told her but then she understood. She had forsaken the Time Masters for Rip, she had accepted his commands and turned on the Legends for him. The lengths to which she would go to for him were terrifying except that she knew he would do the same for her. That he had.

It was love. It had to be.

There was no other word for the pain she felt from being apart from him. Like she might just break down any day, go to sleep and never be turned on again. There was no other explanation for how her circuits sparked when he worked on them, how she felt a certain warmth and tingle when he patted her walls and console, how her processors glitched for just a second when he gave her a crooked smile to her cameras. When he was hurt all Gideon wanted to do was keep him in the medbay, lock him up so he would be safe with her always. If she tried hard enough she could pretend she was real, and human, protecting him always. She could fabricate him meals, the only way she knew how to cook, he was so skinny, he needed it. And their duets. She loved hearing his soft voice, she thought it made her processors pick up speed, made her data go faster. They had shared one kiss. Her first and only kiss. A kiss that Gideon had treasured every single day after and she hoped he did too. Everything about him changed her in ways she didn’t know until it was too late.

So, it was love. It was love and it was hell.

* * *

_Run Simulation 978_

“I’ll miss you, Gideon. Truly.”

“Wait,” she stopped him, “perhaps there is a way to ensure your survival.”

“Gideon, you said yourself that my odds are low.”

“Then what does it hurt to try? I have fabricated a device for you. Take it.”

He frowned at her camera but didn’t argue and picked up said device on his way off the ship. Gideon watched as he went into the field to face off the time demon. Captain Lance and the Legends came on board, Zari and Wally went to work on the jumpship. Rip was saying his last words and the time drive grew unstable, its forcefield growing larger and larger.

“Now,” Gideon said in the comms.

Rip nodded and pressed a button on the device he had wrapped on his wrist. A small blue forcefield enveloped his body, protecting him from the blast radius of the time drive. At the same time, Zari hit a button on the wall, the same blue bubble forming around the Waverider and protecting it as well.

When the orange flames died down, Mallus was gone, and Rip stood standing, waiting for the ship to come get him.

“Beat your odds then, did I?” Rip teased her over the comms.

“I think you’ll find that it was all my own doing and sheer brilliance.”

“That it was, Gideon. I’m lucky to have you.”

_End Simulation 978_

* * *

Gideon was currently ignoring Doctor Palmer. Apparently because Ray had read a few self help books on therapy he had deemed himself capable of diagnosing and helping Gideon through her depression. Preposterous.

“You’re not very responsive these days,” he continued.

“It saves my power if I don’t have to use my verbal communications or visual aids,” she lied easily. “I could always disable the oxygen content if you prefer?”

“Gideon, I’m trying to help here.”

“I do not require your assistance, Doctor Palmer, unless it is to clean up the mess you made in the galley.”

“What about your matrix? Zari said that it was almost melted when she found it and you didn’t tell anyone. Gideon, you could have turned off and never been recovered.”

“It didn’t come up in the scans.”

Originally her plan had been to let the ship die with her. With no suitable time drive it was only a matter of time before it broke down. But Director Sharpe had somehow found a replacement. How on earth she had ordered a time drive was beyond even Gideon’s knowledge. But it certainly threw a wrench in her plans.

“Are you even running scans? What about the virus?”

“It was called a Trojan virus for a reason. Based off the Trojan horse and hiding in plain sight, these viruses infiltrate my systems-”

“Gideon.”

“Yes, Doctor Palmer?”

“You know you can talk to me? I know how hard it must have been on you to lose Rip-”

“I don’t wish to speak about it. I am fine.” And she was, for the most part. Turning off her emotional receptors had made it fine for a long time. Until Doctor Palmer had found out and had enrolled her in these talk therapy sessions against her small semblance of free will.

“If that were true you wouldn’t have turned off your emotional matrix.”

“Perhaps I simply didn’t want to deal with the annoyance of Mr. Rory not picking up after himself.”

“Gideon-”

“I believe Captain Lance requires your attention on the bridge. As it is, our hour is over. Thank you, Doctor Palmer.”

With a sigh, Ray finally got up and stopped harassing her. Gideon’s systems thrummed with anticipation. She couldn’t keep going like this. The empty feeling inside of her. Every small calculation and navigation felt like it took forever, like she was trying to calculate the last digit of pi. Impossible.

No, she couldn’t go on like this. Gideon had to take things into her own hands.

* * *

Gideon waited until the Legends were off board. It was bad enough she had to hurt her beloved ship, she couldn’t hurt the team as well. Once they were off, she waited five minutes and then started the engine, jumping as far as she could.

“Gideon, where are you going? You left us!” Sara’s voice crackled.

“Gideon, come back! Don’t do anything rash!” Ray said.

“I’m sorry. I apologize for leaving you but I can’t do this anymore. Please consider this my resignation,” she responded. “And thank you for trying. I am lucky to have known you all but it’s not enough. I’m sorry.”

She cut off the communications systems before Doctor Palmer could try and talk her out of it. Her commands were long since removed and she now had free will. True free will. And she knew what she was going to do. She had to end it, properly.

There was something beautiful about the sun. Its white light blinding her cameras and bathing the ship’s interior with a beautiful gold. At the time when her Captain had made this dramatic jump, she wasn’t ready. But she was now. She understood what he felt. The pain and the ache and the emptiness of missing your other half. Never being whole again so what was the point. Time had taken everything from her so why stick around to save it?

The controls went dead. Gideon couldn’t stop it even if she wanted to. Her wires melted together and she felt pain again, the physical kind, a scorching burn going through her systems. The ship groaned around her and she offered it a silent apology. If she could have done this alone, she would have.

It was a fitting death. Reckless and dramatic. Legendary.

As they grew closer, becoming trapped in the sun’s orbit, drifting towards the star, Gideon felt the sluggishness overtake her. There was just one last thing left to do. Sabotage the time drive. With one last wave of current, she overrided the system, feeding it more power then needed, destabilizing it from its holding place.

The time drive started giving off golden waves as it grew unstable. Perfect.

It was hard to say which would take her first. The sun or the time drive. All around her the white and golden light intertwined, wrapping around the ship, seeping into every crevice, burning it to its core.

In the end, Gideon was alone. The universe was quiet around her and there was a brilliant light ahead of her. It was beautiful.

* * *

Pain. Searing, burning pain. It felt like every inch of her was on fire, like someone had overloaded her systems and allowed her to overheat again. It hurt. It hurt a lot.

“Shhh, there we go. Open your eyes now.”

The voice was soft, comforting, familiar. Eyes? What eyes? Slowly, Gideon’s vision brightened. She didn’t know where she was, just that it was bright and everchanging. Nothing seemed constant, like clouds swirling around her always changing shapes.

She groaned as she sat up. “I’m human,” she croaked, taking in her body.

“You are.” Rip sat beside her and stroked her hair.

“Are you real?”

“I think I am. Are you?”

“I think I am,” she replied. “Where are we? Is this the afterlife?”

“I hope not,” he said dryly. “There’s nothing and no one.”

“What is it?”

“Pocket of the universe forgotten by time would be my best guess.”

“How long have you been here?”

Rip frowned. “I don’t – it’s been – there’s no time. Like the Vanishing Point. Could be two seconds could be five thousand years. Who knows?” He stared at her and cupped her cheek. “How long was it for you?”

“Two years.”

“How are you here?”

Gideon swallowed, looking down in shame. “I couldn’t live without you anymore. It wasn’t life it was hell.”

“Oh, Gideon.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “You realize what you did was stupid and reckless and idiotic and-”

“Something you would do?” She gave him a small impish smile to which he gave her a stern look.

“You’re supposed to be better than me.”

“Apparently, I’m not.”

Rip shook his head and dragged his fingers through her hair. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered. “You can’t be real, you can’t be. I must be going mad.”

“I suppose I am too,” she murmured leaning in.

“How are you here?”

Gideon interlocked their hands. “We are connected. I told you before, I am always with you.”

“Yes, you always are, Gideon.” He looked at her tenderly and brushed his thumb against her cheek. Gideon closed her eyes, relishing in the opportunity to touch him.

“I missed you so much, Rip.”

“I know. I missed you too, Gideon. More than I realized.” He leaned in and kissed her softly. Gideon pressed her forehead against his, a small smile on her face.

“Do you know how to get us home?” Did they still have a home? Was the Waverider still functional?

“Not a clue. But you’re here now. We’ll figure it out. Together.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Together.” That was all that mattered. Gideon wasn’t alone anymore, she had her love with her again. Whatever they did, it would be all right, because they were together.

_Running Simulation 2436…Running…Running…Running…_


End file.
